Back in March I predicted, prematurely, that the wheels were coming off of the national standards train. Andy Rotherham had declared that the adoption of national standards was “close to a done deal,” but then the Wall Street Journal came out with an editorial strongly opposing national standards.
I thought that would derail the Gates-fueled and Obama/Duncan enforced train, but it did not. As it turns out, states in the midst of a severe budgetary pinch are inclined to promise a lot in exchange for federal and Gates dollars now.
But all of those state promises to revise their standards, change their curriculum, change their professional development, and adopt new tests were all about steps that would occur far in the future. Now that the federal money was already handed out and new money is unlikely to be forthcoming given the midterm election, the states may change their tune. The states are like the kind of person who, when you stop buying her all of those flowers and expensive dinners, may not keep telling you how handsome and smart you are — and the wedding plans are probably in jeopardy.
To see how the tide is turning, check out this piece by Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute in the Boston Globe. As Jim writes:
With Rick Perry said to be a shoo-in for the head of the Republican Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), which was one of a handful of lead groups pushing states to adopt national standards, may find itself in deep trouble. In fact, Perry, as the head of the RGA, may force the National Governors Association, which together the CCSSO, Achieve Inc., and the Gates Foundation, acted as cheerleaders for national standards, to revisit its position in support of national standards….
The opening that Governor Perry has on this issue is obvious and rumor has it that he is thinking very seriously about actions that reassert state control over the education agenda (and leverage the RGA to do so). The clearest place for Perry to begin is with the dozens of states that did not participate in Race to the Top. There are also key states that did participate, and in the case of New Jersey, California and Indiana even adopted the national standards, but did not win any RTT money.
The key states to watch are California, Indiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia. In addition to being states that either did not adopt the national standards, or adopted them and did not win federal funds, they have one additional and important commonality among them: They have had higher standards than most other states in the nation.
I think Jim Stergios is spot-on. And as I’ve written before, getting agreement on national standards is almost politically impossible given that we are a large and diverse country with legitimate and competing visions of what schools should look like. You could get states to pledge their support but as we are now seeing, getting the details in place is inevitably very difficult.
Posted by Jay P. Greene 
Jay P. Greene's Blog 